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Dalton State College conducted the first broad-scale test of its
new electronic emergency notification system this week,
announced College officials, who said the test was “definitely a
success.”
The electronic communication system was activated on Wednesday
and delivered land-line and cellular telephone calls and email
and text messages to more than 4,500 students, faculty, and
staff, achieving a successful delivery rate of 84.7 percent.
“We, like most other colleges and universities, have implemented
an emergency communication system on campus in response to the
Virginia Tech tragedy,” says Dr. Jim Burran, President of Dalton
State.
“And while this has been in the planning stage since last
spring, we’ve now been able to fully implement most components
of this system.”
Burran said that College officials “are obviously pleased with
the success of this initial effort. To be able to communicate
almost instantaneously with over 4,500 individuals is a very
positive step and will play a major role in improving our
emergency notification efforts on campus.”
According to Vice President of Fiscal Affairs Scott Bailey, an
assessment was launched by college officials last spring to
determine what types of campus emergency response measures
should be adopted at Dalton State.
The list of recommendations included arming Public Safety
officers, adopting an electronic emergency notification system,
installing emergency call boxes in all campus buildings and
installing Public Address (PA) systems across the campus.
“At this point, all but the last of these recommendations have
been put in place, and we are currently working on the PA
component,” Bailey said. The cost for implementing all of these
new measures, including the PA system, comes to around $85,000.
Bailey said that the campus community was notified by email on
Tuesday that a test message would be activated on Wednesday
afternoon. The actual test message was sent around 3:30 pm
Wednesday to students, faculty, and staff and within 30 seconds
messages were being received.
“Most of the emails, phone calls, and text messages were
received within the first 15 minutes,” he said, noting that the
program automatically “redials” and/or “resends” messages that
are not initially delivered successfully.
“Some students and employees were notified by several different
methods,” Bailey said, noting that each person has the option of
listing up to six modes of contact, including email and/or text
messaging, home, work, and cellular telephone numbers, and
additional phone contacts as requested.
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